


the answers

by yo_let_me_get_a_milkyway



Category: In the Heights - Miranda/Hudes
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grades, School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27844297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yo_let_me_get_a_milkyway/pseuds/yo_let_me_get_a_milkyway
Summary: sonny gets a bad grade. benny helps him out a little.
Relationships: Benny & Sonny (In the Heights)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	the answers

**Author's Note:**

> sorry needed to write a vent fic lmao this was rushed

Well. This couldn’t get worse. 

Math was never Sonny de la Vega’s strong suit. It wasn’t that he was bad at it or that he couldn’t improve, but the teachers over the years only seemed to degrade in quality and suddenly he found himself spiraling into a hole of not knowing whatever the hell was happening. Blaming it on the teachers was never an option either - his parents would probably just yell at him for the crappy grade and tell him to study in his room longer because they couldn’t afford a tutor. 

And it wasn’t that he couldn’t study. In fact, civics and english were his strong suit - ask him about the congressional process and he could give you all the details, more than your average teenager. All his other subjects were shiny A’s and B’s, that big fat C in math contrasting every single time he got the paper with the numbers on them. Call it his attention span. Sonny knew the answer - he was just plain  _ stupid.  _

So. It couldn’t get any worse. 

Sitting on his bus home, he frantically yearned to ask the other kids if anyone had white-out paint or something to scratch off the letter he dreaded so much. Then he remembered that this wasn’t elementary school anymore and that his parents and everyone else knew when and how grades were coming in, and that the others knew that any trick they could try to pull off to attempt to hide them was unfortunate and oftentimes embarked in failure. Sonny knew the inevitable and spent the most of the day worrying and preparing himself for how the lecture may go instead of actually paying attention. 

He thought of people outside of school as they passed 96th Street. Nina Rosario was amazing at math, no,  _ everything,  _ and it was probably because she was a girl. One time though, Usnavi told him that Nina had gotten a C in Phys Ed (something he had a decent grade in, because kicking balls wasn’t too hard) and she had cried the whole day and no one thought her worse for it. In fact, Papa Rosario trudged himself over to the school and demanded to see the gym teacher in order to find out how his daughter had been taught and she had eventually gotten more help. God, if he didn’t wish that was him. 

The bus stopped where he got off on 181st, right beside the underground subway stairs entrance. One of his friends told him to walk slowly back home. Stall around, make it last longer. Sonny wasn’t the type to avoid the inevitable. He’d speed walk if it meant getting the yell talk over with-

“Yo, lil champ,” a voice called out from the pole on the corner of the street. “Don’t think that just because Usnavi or Abuela aren’t here to pick you up, they’re letting you walk alone.”

Sonny quickly turned to meet his brother’s best friend, Benny. Benny had walked him home from the bus stop before, probably did it for free even, just because Usnavi was a worrier and he didn’t want to risk Sonny getting lost somewhere (despite the fact that he knew the way home). Quickly cleaning up his face, he shoved the envelope folder behind his back and sweatingly greeted him. 

Benny rolled his eyes and sighed. “I know that look, lil homie,” he gently lamented, staring at the ground where Sonny’s eyes seemed to burn. “Do we need to take a detour through Bennett Park?”

“I’d much rather get it over with,” Sonny huffed out as he followed behind Benny, who seemed to be having a great jolly time compared to him. “My parents won’t be happy if I get home too late, so I need to get to Usnavi so I can work my shift.”

“Y’know Usnavi told me those shifts aren’t required?”

“I still need ‘em for lunch money.”

Benny’s brow drooped. “Well that ain’t right,” he said. “Look, Usnavi worries about you and he’s my best bro, ‘kay? Your worries are his worries, and that means yours are mine too.”

Earning a comforting backrub, Sonny sighed, seemingly subject to Benny’s big brother therapy. “I got another C in math. It ain’t my fault-”

“It ain’t no one’s fault, lil homie.”

Sonny groaned in mild frustration at Benny’s small interruption, but then Benny raised his hands up in small surrender while his eyes darted around trying to let Sonny let out his crappy teenage feelings. “”M sorry, it’s just - my dad’s gonna be pissed about it! I’m trying my hardest and I stay up at night worrying or trying to study, but it’s just! I can’t!”

He didn’t know when it started happening, but his voice got wetter and wetter and he had to fight to keep the tears in his eyes. “I wanna get better,” Sonny frustratedly hissed at the floor, watching his tears finally plop miserably against the concrete. “I don’t wanna be like the other boys, I wanna be like Nina-”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Benny quietly shushed him, ushering him closer and wrapping an arm around him so no one saw him. “Let’s get you home, lil dude-”

“I don’t wanna go home! My parents won’t understand, and I don’t want to be like the other kids but  _ they don’t understand because they think I’m a baby!” _

If Sonny could bury himself in a hole in the ground, he’d want to right about now if it wasn’t for Benny veering them off path and into the grassy part of the park past the fence where no one saw him breaking down. Benny rubbed his hand on the flat of his back, sitting him down under a tree and taking off the heavy weight of his backpack. “Cry all you need to,” Benny gently comforted, offering his shoulder for Sonny to cry on before he immediately threw himself on him. 

As Sonny shook, he felt Benny breath against him and try to calm him down. “It ain’t your fault,” Benny quietly told him. “It’s no one’s fault. Everyone’s got flaws, okay?”

No answer was earned, but Benny continued to sit there while Sonny gripped his shirt in a ball of frustration. As the waves began to still, his grip lessened on Benny’s shoulder, and he immediately parted from Benny and angrily wiped his face. “I’m sorry,” Sonny huffed. “Didn’t mean to get your shoulder all snotty and wet.”

“Mr. Rosario won’t be mad if I tell him why,” he gently replied, rubbing his shoulder. “If it helps… can I see your grades?”

Sonny hesitated slightly, before reaching forward and showing him the orange-tannish envelope. “I opened it earlier,” he quietly muttered in the wake of his humiliation. “It’s not as great as you might think it is.”

Eyes swiping over the numbers and letters, Benny shook his head. “You underestimate myself, lil dude,” he told Sonny. “Look - you got an A in Civics and English.”

“Yeah,” Sonny deadpanned. “Nothing too big.”

“Nothing too big to your parents,” Benny stated. “But big to me, lil dude! You’ve got your brain cells intact at least, knowing all your governments and your presidents and… everything. Look dude, I can’t make everything magically okay, but I can help you fix it.”

_ Well. This wasn’t Benny.  _

“Please tell me you’re actually Benny and this isn’t some random dude coming to kidnap me off the bus stop,” Sonny attempted to joke. “Now you’re getting sappy and nice to me, dude. I don’t like it.”

Benny smiled. “You need it though, trust me,” he told Sonny. “My... mom was also pretty strict about grades. Figured that you might need that little nudge of encouragement. Got me?”

“...Yeah.”

“Great.” Standing up, Benny picked up Sonny’s bag and held out a hand to help Sonny. "Let's head home, okay?" 

**Author's Note:**

> uhh thanks for reading. find me @yo-let-me-get-a-milkyway on tumblr


End file.
